


fallen angels, i taught 'em

by roselikesrain



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Alcohol Abuse, Modern AU, Recreational Drug Use, bartender! ten, enemies to lovers fic if you squint, happy ending implied, johnny has lots of feelings, johnny's blond bun held me at gun point and told me to write this, mostly australian small town vibes bc they're the only ones i know, not too heavy but take note of the tags, smart kid burn out fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28151406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselikesrain/pseuds/roselikesrain
Summary: being the town's golden child is hard work, and johnny suh is tired
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	fallen angels, i taught 'em

Ten remembers being jealous of Johnny Suh. He remembers everyone being jealous of Johnny Suh. 

It was hard not to be jealous of Johnny Suh, he had been blessed with what Ten and his friends had called a golden brain; he excelled at whatever he turned his hand to. Whether it was winning the Grade 5 Mathematics Competition, or winning the grade 9 Creative Writer’s competition, or winning the grade 10 State Triathlon Fair, or winning the National Science Olympiad 2 years early for general qualification, or being the school’s Graduating Valedictorian at sixteen- you get the picture. 

If Ten were a religious man, he’d have said the Gods blessed Johnny. 

In a small town, it was hard to not draw attention being as brilliant as Johnny, every parent knew of him, even if he wasn’t in their child’s year level. And, to their shame, every parent had probably wished their child could be more like Johnny, (especially at report time.) 

When Johnny was offered scholarships to 3 of the most prestigious universities in the country, it was like the whole town was cheering him on. He would be the first in the town’s 450-year history to attend one of the top 3 universities and everyone watched with great interest as to which he would choose. 

Ten had begun in the same grade as Johnny and had watched as the boy, barely a year older breezed through two additional grades without so much as stepping a foot in a single class. He watched on jealously from the sidelines as Johnny packed up his bags to move interstate to the city to begin a four-year aerospace engineering degree, while Ten still had two years of school before he could graduate. 

He got over his jealousy over time, but he never forgot. It was impossible to forget, not when his principle made a speech about how privileged they all were to go to the same school as The John Jun Suh, not when he passed the plaque in the park that bared Johnny’s name every time he went to the grocery store, and most definitely not when his mother reminded him about it. 

“Ten,” She’d say, “My beautiful baby boy, why are you so lazy. That ‘John’ boy is out doing something with his life and you are still here working in that dirty bar.” 

It hurt, of course it did, but it grew less and less. He was comfortable with his life, and he still had time, he didn’t have to be successful at 19. But being the only other family in the town from Asian descent, he wished Johnny hadn’t set the bar so high. 

There came his surprise when one Thursday evening in the depths of autumn while at work, he saw a ghost across the bar. 

Ten had just finished serving a patron a cold beer when he caught sight of him, the icy pint jug almost slipping from his fingers in shock. The cool breeze that blew in through the heavy entrance door tufted the coat of the man who had just walked in, the neon sign outside illuminating his silhouette like a character out of some crappy gin commercial. The man’s face was partially covered by his low beanie and the dim lighting, Ten strained to make out any features he could, the quick flash of a profile he'd seen when the man first appeared had been like taking a time capsule back three years. A call for another lager snapped him out of his trance and back to reality. 

“Coming up!” he’d called back, hands already finding a jug and the correct tap pump. He nodded to the young trainee girl to take care of the new customer, even though he was dying to investigate himself. 

While the last of the customers found their way out, Ten ran through his head the yearly leave times that his friends had from their more local colleges and universities, there were none that matched. He determined that if the man across the bar, sat alone in the back booth with a cluster of empty glasses, was Johnny Suh it would have had to be through a sympathy leave that he had made it back to town. He flicked through a local newspaper lying on the sticky oak countertop but found no news on the infamous Suh family. By all logic, it should have been impossible for Johnny to be there; a character such as him wouldn’t be caught breaking rules taking time out of school when it wasn’t permitted. 

With this in mind, Ten brushed down his apron and set about collecting stray bottles and glasses from the countertop and tables. The soccer mum group had been in for “cheeky martini’s” and there was an array of empty glasses and lipstick-stained napkins on the table next to the mystery man. Without looking up he gathered the fine glasswork and stacked them up on his tray along with the snack plates they’d ordered. 

“Ten?” 

The voice was barely audible over the upbeat music playing over the Soundsystem, but it still made Ten’s steady hands wobble. It was him. 

Ten turned around, pretending to be shocked by the call, “John? It’s been a while!” He said through gritted teeth, he was annoyed with himself for being curious and hated it even more that he hoped it was something bad that had brought the special, golden boy back. Otherwise, Ten wasn’t sure he could cope with the insufferable hubbub that would ensue when the town found out Johnny had come back, he wouldn’t be surprised if they threw a damn party. 

Johnny leant forward and flashed him a weathered smile, face now lit up in the yellow downlights. His cheeks were more defined than they used to be, but his eyes were slightly sunken, haloed by dark rings. Johnny’s chin had the ghostings of a choppy beard and his bleached blond hair was falling out of the scraggly bun he had tied. He looked a mess, there was no denying it and it made Ten feel bad for his previous thought, a shiver of worry working through his system that maybe something bad _had_ happened. 

“Sit down, buddy! Sit down!” He said, hastily clearing his rucksack off the chair opposite him. “We should catch up over a bottle of something! Are you a whiskey man?” 

Ten slowly sat down, feeling like a stranger in his own workplace. Had three years really been so long that he’d forgotten everything about Johnny, or was the one in front of him now an imposter living in Johnny’s body? 

“I’m working, I can’t drink and- I don’t think you should either.” He took note of the tremor in Johnny’s hands and he reached for a cigarette tucked behind his ear. “How many have you had?” 

“Here, or today in general?” He laughed as Ten’s eyes widened and he looked up from counting the empty glasses on the table. “And c’mon, there’s no one else even here, can’t you just turn in and call it a day, have a drink with an old friend?” 

There it was again, ‘buddy’, ‘friend’. Sure, he wouldn’t have considered the two of them strangers, but to call them friends seemed like a step too far. They’d been together for four years at school before Johnny had skipped Grade 4 and Grade 6, but that was over a decade ago, and they’d barely spoken in the subsequent years beyond the general formalities and small talk at community barbeques. 

Ten rose to his feet, loading Johnny’s beakers and shot glasses onto the tray. “Maybe another time?” He called over his shoulder. 

Johnny followed him to the counter, swaying on his feet like a toddler talking its first steps. Once there he gripped the gold enamel railing like a lifeline, only releasing his grip to knock back the last dregs of someone else's unfinished beer.

“Oh!” He exclaimed after slamming the glass down on the coaster, “I almost forgot to pay!” He fished around in the deep pockets of his coat to pull out a crumpled wad of bills and mismatched coins. As he tipped them out a stray coin rolled to the floor with a clang and Johnny reached down to collect it. On the way back up, he smashed the crown of his head on the overhang of the counter making the whole unit shudder. “Oops!” Johnny said with a chuckle, rubbing the back of his head while helplessly trying to slide across onto one of the bar stools. “Will that be enough?” He asked. 

Ten leafed through the mess with the tip of his finger and sighed a yes. If it wasn’t, he figured he could always sub in the rest at a later date. “Keep the dollar,” he said when Johnny tried to add the escapee to the rest of the pile. 

Johnny hummed happily, “Thanks, that was my last dollar, guess this is my last stop for the night!” 

Unable to bear the pity party that Johnny had become any longer, Ten brought him a glass of iced water. “Drink this and wait here. I’ll drive you to where you’re staying, I’m not letting you on the roads on your own and there’s no way you’re drinking any more alcohol.” 

It didn’t take him long to load the dishwasher, set it going and wipe down the tables, the eagerness to stop Johnny’s drunken murmurings somewhat spurred him on. He’d locked up the bar enough times that he was grabbing his coat and ushering Johnny out of the door in under 20 minutes. “So, where are you staying?” 

Johnny gestured his arms out wide, narrowly missing Ten’s face with his long limbs. “Here!”

“No, I mean like, what’s the address? I assumed you were staying in town.” 

The boy’s face morphed into a childish frown, split lips puckered into a pout. “I know, that’s where I’m staying, in my car.” This time he pointed to a small sedan less than 5 paces away. 

Of all the shocks that Ten had already had that evening, he was sure this would be the biggest, (for the record, he was wrong.) He couldn’t believe that Johnny, the perfect boy, was now spending his nights sleeping in the backseat of an early 2000’s Lancer, like the one his mum used to drive when he was in primary school. 

The car was haphazardly abandoned, (Ten couldn’t bring himself to say parked,) illegally over a yellow line in the street and it looked a wreck. The hubcaps were scraped and scuffed as if they’d been in a fight with the curb and the left wing-mirror hung miserably, barely attached to the car with a measly strip of duct tape. The olive-gold paint job was bubbling all over the bonnet and roof of the car and due to the subtle slope in the car’s axis, Ten would have guessed the back right tyre was losing pressure. 

To his disgust, the inside of the car was no better; brown paper takeaway bags lined the footwell and cigarette butts cluttered the dashboard, the small spherical burns dotting the surface like broken constellations. A musty smell, not too dissimilar to the boy’s changerooms back in middle school, wafted out from the car when Johnny opened up the passenger door for Ten, “Welcome to my humble abode.” 

“Full offence, but that’s disgusting and there’s no way that car’s road safe.” 

Johnny fixed him with a dark look, “Come off it, she drives like a beauty.” 

“So what, you’re just gonna sleep there overnight?” 

Johnny shrugged, “Well yeah, where else would I go?” 

Ten wanted to remind him that his parents lived less than a half-hour away, but it didn’t seem right considering Johnny’s inebriated state and the time of night. Somewhere inside him, the better person realised that it would also be cruel to leave him to sleep in the car, only to be picked up by the cops in the morning and have his fall-from-grace tale splashed on the front pages of the newspapers and local gossip magazines. It was a miracle no one had already recognised him in the bar, but Ten supposed it was hard to find the similarities between award-winning-Johnny from binge-drinking-Johnny. 

He checked his watch. 12:03. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, all the motels would be closed at this point, no one visited small towns any earlier than 7 pm. “You could stay at my place overnight?” 

Johnny’s eyes widened and he swung an arm around Ten’s neck, pulling him into an awkward hug. “I knew I could count on you!” 

Ten wrinkled his nose and patted Johnny’s shoulder, wrestling tap-out style. The reek of alcohol was putrid like Johnny had bathed in it. Before he let Johnny anywhere near his futon, he would force him into the shower. 

Johnny spent the entire ride to Ten’s house restless. Ten cursed the fact that he wasn’t a drowsy drunk. At one point, he was hanging out of the window so far Ten was worried he’d fall out of the car, eyes closed in satisfaction like a dog. Once he was safely back in, he fiddled constantly with the radio, complaining at Ten’s indie rock collection of CDs that lived under the passenger seat. Johnny favoured the American hip-hop classics, muttering the words under his breath and singing the choruses with a voice that, to Ten’s dismay, was unfortunately good. Why did he have to be good at _everything_? 

He was still singing when they reached Ten’s house, a typical suburban kind with a veranda that wrapped all around and a tin roof that sounded like a timpani drum when it rained. Ten had to drag him away from the wheelie bins after he tried to climb in it (“It’s where I belong.”) But somehow he managed to get him into the house without waking up the neighbourhood- he hoped.

His mother had gone to bed already, she always had by the time Ten got home. (“There’s nothing good on TV after 10.” she’d say and Ten would respond with: “There’s nothing good on TV anyway.”) But her being asleep made the infiltration mission no easier. Johnny stumbled down the corridor, hands dragging along the wall to brace himself while Ten did his best to guide him to the bathroom. 

“Shower, then bed.” 

Johnny gasped at Ten’s retreating figure through the crack in the door, “Ten! Are you trying to _seduce_ me?!” 

Ignoring the childish jibe, Ten made his way to his room, setting the futon up with spare blankets and rooting through his closet for something that might fit the older boy, because shower or not, his clothes would still be dirty. 

It must’ve taken Ten longer than he expected as he was seconds away from changing into his pyjamas when Johnny’s lowered voice came from behind him: “Did you draw these?” Johnny stood in his doorway in nothing but his boxers with one of Ten’s mother’s floral towels wrapped around his shoulders. He seemed to be slightly soberer, posture no longer slumped and his words more clear. He had a shave too, stubble no longer coating his chin.

Ten’s fingers dropped from the hem of his shirt, “Um, yeah.” He gestured to where the spare clothes lay, “those are for you.” 

“Whoa dude, they’re really good. You’re so talented.” 

Ten felt himself blush at the compliment. It felt wrong to be complemented by Johnny, knowing all he had accomplished, like when an adult praises a child for their stick people paintings. 

“No, I’m serious! This one guy in my dorm was accepted into a visual arts program and, like, all he did was flick paint on a canvas or something. You could wipe the floors with him.” 

“Art is interpretive.” Ten provided when he saw Johnny’s smile slip off his face like he’d remembered something sour. Not wanting to probe into anything unsavoury, he motioned for Johnny to turn around while he got dressed- Ten was no prude but neither was he quite so content to parade half-naked in front of an almost-stranger like Johnny was. (He blamed it on the town for turning Johnny into an exhibitionist.) “I’m gonna go wash and brush my teeth, feel free to go to sleep.” 

Ten spent much time thinking while he brushed, brainstorming reasons for Johnny’s sudden return. His brain churned out a myriad of hypotheticals from unlikely (Johnny had impregnated someone and couldn’t deal with the accountability), to less unlikely (the campus was undergoing renovations and Johnny is making up for his lost youth), to extremely unlikely (after being indoctrinated into alcoholism by his strange artist flatmate, Johnny had stolen spirits from a bar and was now being hunted by a biker gang). But still, none seemed to fit. So, too tired to think any more, Ten wandered back to his room for the comfort of sleep. 

His room was dark when he entered and, at first, he assumed Johnny had gone to sleep. That was until he saw the shadowy figure by the window, squatted on his desk chair staring out of the open window. Ten was about to complain about closing the screen for the cold when he saw the joint resting in the crooks of Johnny’s fingers. 

“I dropped out.” 

Ten blinked and stopped still, mouth open, brain trying to catch up, had he heard wrong? “What?” 

“I dropped out of my course and didn’t tell anyone, I just couldn’t do it anymore.” 

Ten let out a laugh too close to being a snarl, “What? Couldn’t take not being the smartest person in the room anymore?” 

The comment didn’t hit as he had expected, instead, Johnny sighed tiredly like he surrendered to the fight before it had even started. “I just couldn’t do it, not because it was too hard, because I know I _could_ have done it.” He paused for a while, taking a hit of his joint. “It’s more like I just couldn’t bring myself to. Every time I tried to read the theory work or write anything toward my assignments, it’s like my body just shut down.” 

Another hit. 

“I think at one point I slept for three days in a row, it was so hard to get up that I just didn’t.” 

Ten walked slowly to the window where he gently leaned against the wall next to Johnny. For whatever reason the universe had designated him Johnny’s caretaker that night, he was determined to fulfil the job. He had learnt more about Johnny in the last hour than he had probably ever known in all the other years he’d known him combined. It felt like Johnny was letting him see inside a piece of his soul; a fragile, timid slice that could be snatched back at any time, covered over and buried forever. 

Johnny took a final hit of his joint, cheeks hollowing as he breathed in, head tipped back slightly to open his airways, muscles stirring right down his bare abdomen as he moved. He blew the smoke through the window and stubbed out the joint on the metal sill. As his eyes fluttered open, they met Ten’s. His dark pupils reflected the harsh glow of the streetlight and to Ten, they seemed empty. Looking into them was looking down a deep well that had no visible bottom and no way out. In a poetic way, looking into them made Ten empathise more with Johnny, he too now felt as if he was drowning. 

He took a deep breath, breaking the eye contact and fixing Johnny with a look he usually reserved for work when he wanted to appear like he was listening. “Go on.” He gently whispered. 

Johnny leant his cheek on his knee. Ten’s sweatpants were small on him and they hugged his thighs quite opposite to the way they fell loosely over himself. “It’s like I’ve misplaced my mind somewhere and I can’t find it, no matter how hard I search. My head is just empty and I can't bring myself to care about anything, it's like I'm detached from myself.” He said, already showing signs of drowsiness. 

Offering him a hand, Ten pulled Johnny up of the chair and guided him to the futon, tucking him into the sheets. It sounded a lot like burn out to him. He forced himself to retract his hand after it ghosted across the stray strands of wet hair that sat on Johnny’s cheek. He just felt sorry for him, that was where the softness was coming from. “Quite often things only show up once you stop looking.” 

Ten didn’t sleep much that night, he lay on his bed listening to the sounds of Johnny breathing, to the branches of the old gum tree in the garden drag across the corrugated roof, to the dog down the street howling at the shadows. He watched his alarm clock slip from 1:36 to 2:29 to 2:57 to 3:31 to 4:02 and it was about that time when he dozed off, despite the thoughts swirling around in his mind. 

When he awoke, the futon was empty, it had been folded back up and the blankets were folded neatly on top. His alarm clock said 10:13, he’d overslept and missed Johnny leaving. His mother would have left for work too, he’d have to apologise when he saw her that afternoon. 

He shuffled into a pair of fluffy socks to keep his feet warm from the cool morning breeze that wafted up through the old wooden floorboards and padded out to the kitchen. But the squeak of the dishwasher closing made him pause in the hallway. Perhaps his mother had got the day off, he pondered. 

His fifth shock, (or sixth, he wasn’t sure at this point,) came when he made it to the kitchen. Johnny stood, still in last night’s attire -no shirt and Ten’s navy sweatpants- scrubbing at the dishes in the sink like he lived there. 

“Morning!” He said, “I told your mum I’d finish washing up as she was a bit late for work, she makes a mean omelette, great hangover food. Gave me an aspirin too” 

Ten paled, he was not looking forward to the interrogation that would come later from his mother. Nor was he looking forward to her suggestive looks that would likely haunt Johnny’s name whenever it came up in conversation, such was her sense of humour. 

“How are you even alive? You must’ve drunk like 3 litres last night, and I’m not even gonna mention the weed. My mum would have killed you if she knew.” 

“I don’t know, practice, I guess.” Johnny gave him a wolfish grin, “Or maybe I’m just special?” 

Ten rolled his eyes and scooped up one of his cats for a morning hug. It was Louis, his brown ears twitching in annoyance, mirroring exactly how Ten felt. 

“Want coffee?”

Ten nodded, his endorphins reacting to hearing the word. He set Louis down and began to make up a bowl of cereal for his breakfast, navigating around Johnny who had taken to the coffee machine, blasting steam and filling the kitchen with that glorified caffeine smell. 

The coffee was good. Ten wasn’t sure how exactly it could taste so good when it had been made on the same machine that made his coffee every morning. He supposed coffee making was just another gift that came with being gifted. 

It felt strange, sat across the table from Johnny, both sipping their coffees. It felt like some kind of honeymoon, the waking up and having coffee together. It felt different from the sleepovers he’d had with his friends at 16, but he wasn’t ready to turn those feelings into thoughts quite yet. 

“I always told myself that if I ever came back to this town, it would be to thank you.” 

Ten sent Johnny a quizzical look, quickly getting tired of his unprompted revelations. His bowl of cereal was quickly overflowing with milk at the mercy of the verbal distraction. “What? Why?” 

Johnny didn’t respond right away and if Ten knew him better he’d have noticed the tips of his ears flushing red. “Because you were different.” He said, “You never treated me like I was someone special or a spectacle or anything. You never asked me to ‘say something smart’ or give you pointers for your exams. Because, sure, I’ve memorised Pi up to 232 digits, but sometimes I just wanna talk about the game on the weekend, y’know?” 

Ten bit his lip, he wasn’t sure if now was a good time to mention that the reason he never mentioned Johnny’s mega-brain around him was that he had genuinely loathed him for it and couldn’t bear hearing about it. But Johnny continued before he could properly consider coming clean. 

“Do you remember the last thing you said to me before I went away? You said ‘Stay safe and have fun.’” Had he said that? Ten couldn’t remember. “Everyone else said ‘make the town proud’ or ‘give the town a good name sonny’, like it was my damn duty or something. No one actually cared about me, just what I was capable of. It’s why I haven’t told my parents -why I’m behaving the way I am- because I’m so damn scared of what I’ll be if I’m not Kid Genius John any more.” 

Despite over-shooting with the Cheerios, Ten was getting through them, chewing thoughtfully. Although, if he’d have known breakfast was going to turn into a therapy session, he might’ve skipped the cereal and just poured another coffee. 

“I think they’ll understand, your parents, that is- the rest of the town can screw themselves. Just tell them that it’s not what you want and that you just wanna do what makes you happy. They seem like good people, they’re not gonna make you do something that’s causing you pain and if they don’t understand, well, screw them too.” 

Johnny seemed to sink back into his chair, the old wooden frame groaning on its hinges. He looked more at ease than Ten had seen him for the whole of their reunion. “See,” He said, “this is why I l-, why I missed you. You always know what to say.” 

As if to disprove Johnny’s point, Ten’s brain helpfully provided ‘uh-huh’ as his only response. He sipped desperately from his cup so he could blame his racing pulse on the caffeine instead. ‘Why did he stop?’ his brain chanted.

“What are your plans for today?” 

“Not much,” Ten shrugged, “Probably some grocery shopping, but after that, not much, you?” 

“I was hoping I could tag along with whatever you’re doing. My clothes should probably go to the laundromat, they haven’t been washed since I left the city and I drove all the way.” 

So that’s how they filled the day, with abstract chores around Ten’s house, music on in the background. Occasionally Ten would sing along under his breath when he forgot he wasn’t alone and Johnny would tell him he sounded nice and Ten would blush. 

Johnny had a nap around 1 pm, sleeping off the rest of his hangover and Ten turned the music down real low, sitting closer to the speakers so it was still audible while he folded the washing. Johnny’s clothes spun around in the dryer, they planned to visit the supermarket after they had come out. It was while Johnny was asleep that he got a call from his mother. 

“Hi _mae_ ,” he said, crawling on his knees out of the room. “Surprise, I guess.” 

“I’ll admit, it’s not how I thought you bringing someone home for the first time would go, but I’m happy for you.” 

Ten rolled his eyes, glad for the fact that his mother was speaking Thai, at least that way her nosy workmates wouldn’t know _all_ of his business. “It’s not like that _mae_ , he just needed a place to stay. I couldn’t have taken him home in that state, his parents would’ve had an aneurysm.” 

“I understand, he needs all the support he can get, poor boy. He’s been through a lot and needs all the care he can get.” 

“I know.” 

“You know I don’t like to pry,” Ten did not know this, from his experience, she found a large amount of pleasure in prying. “But, you could do him a lot of good, he really seems to be fond of you.” 

“God knows why.” 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, my baby, you’re a catch; you’re creative, hardworking, you’ve got your mother’s looks, average intelligence, fun-sized, medio-” 

“Okay, I get the picture. Bye _mae_!” 

Ten hung up before his mother could list any more of his so-called appealing traits. He wondered how much truth was in her words, did Johnny really mean it when he said Ten was the only reason he had come back to town? Surely that can’t have been true. 

“You have a good relationship with your mum.” 

This time, Ten didn’t jump. He was slowly getting used to Johnny’s presence in the house and his spontaneous comments. “Yeah, well it’s just been me and her for a really long time, so we’ve become close, I guess. We’ve always been there for each other.” 

“Hmm, must be nice.” Johnny shuffled over to where Ten sat on the sofa and sat on the floor between Ten’s knees. “Brush my hair?” 

Ten took the brush off him, letting Johnny’s bleached hair out of its scraggly bun and began to brush out the knots. He thought his mother was right, being sent away from home at 17 to fend for himself in an alien environment, Johnny missed out on a significant part of growing up and he deserved all the love and support now to make up for it. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Johnny said with a yawn, “would it be okay for me to stay with you for a while? It feels so safe here, and I think it would be good for me. Just until I feel I’m confident to speak to my parents about dropping out, and then I’ll be out of your hair… unless you want me gone sooner, in which case, I can go now. And I-” 

Ten put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, his washing must have finished as it was covered by one of his own shirts. “Don’t worry, you can stay for as long as you need.” He smiled, heart full. He knew under the surface, the boy Johnny had been was probably still there, but he didn’t matter any more, Johnny was free now to rediscover himself without the guidelines of everyone else's expectations. First, they’d work on getting him properly sober, and from there, he knew Johnny could recapture that flame and learn to be happy with himself first, and then the world. And Ten would be by his side for when he fell and he’d be by his side when he ran. For even fallen angels can learn how to fly. 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this instead of doing my college work, pls give me some of your brain cells mega-brain johnny T-T 
> 
> i was planning on posting something else, but i finished this first oops, stay updated for another project (maybe?) it will likely be longer than this, but maybe a little more cheery aha 
> 
> feel free to let me know about any spelling or grammatical errors (it's 2 am and i'm too tired to edit) and tell me about any thoughts you have? i'm a glutton for feedback lol


End file.
